Texas pt. 2

The two highlights from our time in Texas: Lyndon Baines Johnson’s presidential library and hill country estate, and the San Antonio River Walk.
We made it through the storm and arrived in Austin. The first thing we did was go to the LBJ library on the University of Texas campus. It was certainly impressive. First of all, the building itself was enormous, simple white, with a single line of windows at the very top. Inside the lobby are busts of LBJ, Kennedy, Lady Bird, and a large presidential car parked right next to the ticket desk. The ladies manning that desk must be some of the sweetest in Texas. They’re happy to tell you all about LBJ of course, and give you advice about what you can’t miss at the library, but they also dispense useful nuggets of information about where to eat, what else you should see in Austin and the surrounding area, etc… The exhibits at the library were great as well. Pens used to sign landmark civil rights legislation, letters from and to LBJ at different periods of his life, a recreation of the oval office during his time as President with much of the furniture original, and much more. This was the first Presidential library either of us had ever been to and both of us thought they did a fantastic job.
The Johnson sights in the Texas Hill Country are also worth a look. It is only a short drive outside of Austin, and in an area of only about 30 miles, you can see (and take tours of) Johnson’s boyhood home, the “Texas White House” which he bought as a senator and lived in after leaving office, the school he attended as a young boy, and his grave-site. Like the library, many of the things in the “Texas White House” were actual possessions of his, which makes touring the house and grounds that much better.

In San Antonio, we saw the Alamo which was slightly disappointing, but we thoroughly enjoyed the famous River Walk. There were families of ducks and ducklings enjoying the river just as Dorothy and I were, there were restaurants and bars aplenty with outdoor setting on the edge of the river where you could enjoy a drink and snack while watching the people go by, there were old brick buildings with ivy and hanging plants jutting from their walls, and joggers taking their dogs out for runs (one lady with a pit bull nearly ran us off the road and into the drink, all the while hollering about tourists in her way. Were we that obvious? I thought I left my fanny-pack stuffed with maps at home). And there were other people…lots of other people. Actually, we thought, far more people than is normal. At the heart of the restaurant section, it was so crowded that it felt like maneuvering in Times Square on New Years Eve. And they were all wearing name-tags with their names and “A Vision for the Future” printed on them. Dorothy and I tried to figure out who they were, and why they were wearing these name-tags. We thought there must be some convention in town, but the people didn’t seem to have any identifiable unifying characteristic. There were men and women (normal), people from America (normal) but also Australia and Europe (less normal but not too strange). There were people dressed in suits and people with cowboy boots, tattoos, and tons of piercings (now we are starting to get stumped). Finally there were people of all ages…there were seniors, middle aged folks, and people our age (22) and younger. Completely confused, Dorothy and I finally stopped a nice looking couple and asked what the name tags were about. They were a nice couple from Denmark (the man said “We’re from Denmark…you know…Europe? Across the water?” Yes, I think I vaguely remember hearing something about how fruit goes rotten faster in the state of Denmark or something) and the man explained that it was an AA retreat. He said: “this blue mark on my tag means I’m a drunk…well, a former drunk. That green mark on my wife’s tag means she’s not a drunk and is here to support me. There are 60,000 of us recovering alcoholics here in San Antonio for the weekend.” We had our explanation, and the strange mix of demographics all of a sudden made perfect sense. We thought for a moment about that number…60,000. And it seemed as if they were all on the River Walk with us. It was ok though, they weren’t pushy or loud at all…not like that damn lady running with her dog.